Screwdrivered

By day, Viv Franklin is a tough-as-nails software engineer who designs programs and loves hospital corners. By night, Vivian's a secret romance-novel junkie who longs for a knight in shining armor, or a cowboy on a wild stallion, or a strapping firefighter to sweep her off her feet. When a phone call brings news that she's inherited a beautiful old home in Mendocino, California from a long-forgotten aunt, she moves her entire life across the country to embark on what she sees as a great, romance-novel-worthy adventure. But romance novels always have a twist, don't they?

6/10 - Phew!! Still fanning myself nearly 24 hours after I finished this (and it's not because of the open fire that started this whole thing).

Last night my dad was in charge of the tv and he decided that a show about zebras was the show to watch. Sure, I could have left the room and gone to bed, but I wanted to read in front of the fire (the weather was unOctoberly-cold last night, tonight it's feeling like we've skipped most of spring and gone straight to a mid-December night), but there's no lights allowed when Dad's watching animal shows so in order to fulfil my desire to read in front of the fire (possibly for the last time this season) I would have to read an eBook. I was originally going to read a book already on my Kindle, but somehow I got diverted by Alice Clayton and her alcohol-themed Cocktail series. I saw it on my library's website dashboard, advertised as 'available to read now', and I obviously have no self control. I literally couldn't stop myself (not that stopping ever actually entered my head, but if it had I probably would've failed all attempts at it). So that's how I ended up reading on my laptop till 3 am (my library isn't sophisticated/connected enough to get Kindle editions for their digital library, all they have are Adobe Digital Editions or their own Overdrive software, both of which only work on laptops).

I wasn't going to read all night and finish this in one go, but then I started it and the UST was so amazing I could barely tear my eyes away from the screen. I didn't like Clark to start with, in fact if I hadn't read the acknowledgements at the beginning of the book (where Clayton mentioned a number of people's specific love for Clark) I would have been fooled by Hank the red-herring-hero. Clark was too grumpy and too inflexible for me, until Vivian (that's a much better name than 'Viv' and I loved that Clark refused to call her anything else) went home to pack up and those fantastic late-night phone calls happened. *excuse me while I fan myself some more* I loved this so much that I ignored the thirteen other books I have out from the library and the two new holds that have just become available and picked up Nuts, The Unidentified Redhead, and The Redhead Revealed while I was down there returning one measly little book. The sums: 13 books - 1 + 3 = 15, which adds up to what I've been saying all along NO SELF CONTROL. I'm already 100 pages into Nuts. *shakes head in resignation*